Cheerleading, Misinformation, and Moving Ahead with
Mac OS X
After reading Why Apple Can't Use the
970 and Cheerleading,
Misinformation, and Moving Ahead with Mac OS X, Lee Kilpatrick
writes:
When I initially read the "Why Apple Can't Use the 970" article, I
was confused. It seemed to contradict everything else I had been
hearing about the 970, and how it could be used by Apple. It was only
after reading the entire article and seeing your own writing at the
bottom, that I realized the first article was factually incorrect.
Maybe Gene Steinberg didn't present himself in the best way in his
column (his associated comment about file sharing could be considered a
bit arrogant), but I do think that your "reader's opinion" article was
not well-presented as such.
You claimed it was a "point/counterpoint" presentation, yet the
title of the page and the title of the link was "Why Apple Can't Use
IBM's PowerPC 970". It wasn't anything like "Why They Can/Why They
Can't" or even "Why They Can't: Point/Counterpoint". Also, though you
said it was a reader opinion column, that is not clear from the
heading. Looking back on the previous 20 or so "My Turn" columns,
almost all of them have titles that clearly identify them as opinion -
mostly reviews of products, human interest stories like "Confessions of
a Mac-Collecting Addict", and many stories about what direction Apple
should take for this or that product category. Furthermore, not only
did the title of the article give no clue that it was opinion, not
fact, but the tag line, quoted from the article, was "The sad truth of
the matter is that Apple can not and will not use IBM's PowerPC 970
64-bit chip in any of its systems anytime in the foreseeable future."
In other cases where something is presented that was way out there,
you, as the editor, usually add a "huh?" or some other commentary when
you post the link and the tag line.
The PowerPC 970 article had all the appearance of being an
objective, factual article. Its main point was that the 970 didn't have
any sort of 32-bit compatibility with the G4 and previous processors'
instructions. The entire article was predicated on this, and it went on
clear to the end without correction. I guess that I, like Gene
Steinberg, expect things published as objective facts to be accurate
and true. A "point/counterpoint" format doesn't debate things that are
objective and easily verifiable. It debates issues on which people have
varying opinions, and different ideas about how to proceed in the
future.
It would have been better if you had said something up front about
"A reader has written this article/letter, and he has a misconception
about the 970." Or, if you were trying to present that this
misconception is widespread (not my experience), to point this out, and
then to follow his article with your correction.
I can see where you would get upset over Gene's criticism of your
site and his repeated criticism of Charles Moore, but I have to agree
with him in this case.
I'd always felt the columns title and header graphic
made it very clear that My Turn is a
reader column. The name has been used time and again both on the
Internet and in print journals to indicate a column written by someone
not generally associated with the publisher.
We've been publishing My Turn as a reader column since
May 2000. A few of the contributors have become regulars at Low End
Mac, and several have had repeat appearances in My Turn.
We have never before used the point-counterpoint
format, but we have in the past published controversial pieces in hopes
of engendering conversation. Instead of waiting for reader replies, I
felt that the level of misinformation was so overwhelming that it
needed to be addressed immediately. Thus the point-by-point Why Apple
Can Use the 970 immediately following Why Apple Can't Use the 970.
Most readers understood it. Many wrote to praise our
understanding of the PowerPC 970 and the way we debunked the most
common myths about the PPC 970. For the record, the article did
not go on "clear to the end without correction" - the entire
second half was the correction.
The only way I can see someone not understanding that
is if they only read the first few paragraphs and didn't bother to read
the whole column.
What an Interesting Pair of Paragraphs
In response to Cheerleading,
Misinformation, and Moving Ahead with Mac OS X, Peter da Silva
comments
Paragraph 1, near the end of your "Cheerleading" article: 'By
integrating the browser with the OS, Microsoft has had an important
advantage that Mac couldn't touch until Apple delivered Safari.'
The next paragraph: 'Apple needs to push the advantages. Like
viruses. Can anyone name a virus that infects Mac OS X? Anyone? With
five million users, you'd think someone would have come up with a virus
by now.'
There's a strong relationship there. The vast majority of Windows
viruses exploit the security holes created by the integration of the
browser with the desktop. What Microsoft sometimes calls "cross-frame
attacks" occur because the decision whether to trust a piece of code or
not has been moved too deep into the OS. You get a piece of mail, or
you visit a website, and the browser (either directly, or via desktop
integration with Outlook) finds itself with a name and a request that
it be opened.
Unlike Netscape, or any other browser on any OS that I'm familiar
with, Internet Explorer is integrated with the desktop. It takes that
name, looks at where it is, and if it's in a "safe" place it asks the
desktop "how do I open this?".
The problem is, when Outlook calls IE, Outlook has already extracted
the attachment and put it in a file on disk. So, it's a local file, and
the Desktop says "oh, that's an executable" and runs it.
If this was Netscape, or Opera, or any other conventional piece of
software it would say "hey, I don't trust this, I won't open it".
Oh, Microsoft's fixed a lot of these cases, but it's done it piece
by piece, instead of saying "hey, this program knows it can't trust the
document, let's have it handle it itself". It can't, because that would
involve unlinking the desktop and the browser, and that would be
admitting that the browser isn't an inherent part of the OS (the HTML
renderer, OK, I can see that... but it doesn't need to have the
inherent ability to resolve anything itself, it can ask the program
that called it), which would mean backing down on everything they've
been fighting the DoJ since the mid-90s over.
They can't do that, they'd lose face.
OK, what does this have to do with Apple?
Well, Jobs hates to lose face too. If he comes up with some kind of
integrated browser/finder thing, he's heading down the same dark
path...
I don't know the ins and outs of Windows (in)security,
but I know that Word and Excel macros, Visual Basic, handling of email
attachments, Outlook, and Outlook Express are all among the ways
viruses propagate in the Windows world. I was unaware that the tight
integration of Explorer with Windows also contributed to the
problem.
Anyhow, the point I was trying to make (albeit perhaps
less clearly than I'd hoped), is that Microsoft's intimate knowledge of
Windows allows them to create programs, such as IE 6, that are
optimized for Windows in ways that the competition can rarely match.
Opera is facing an uphill battle creating the world's fastest browser
when it runs on the world's most proprietary operating system.
With Safari, Apple has taken an Open Source project
and optimized it for Mac OS X, something similar to what Chimera
does with the Mozilla source code and not altogether dissimilar to the
way OmniWeb is designed from the ground up as an OS X browser. By
customizing the browser specifically for the OS instead of simply
recompiling existing source code and leveraging Apple's resources,
Safari will be tightly tied to the operating system, although never to
the extent IE 6 is on Windows (we hope!).
I don't think Safari will ever integrate with the OS
like IE does; we already have Aqua to handle local and networked file
services. That's not what I meant when I talked about integration; I
meant the way Safari is tightly coupled to the underlying OS, optimized
for OS X, and cannot exist without it.
The G5 Is Dead
In response to Why Apple Can't Use
the 970, Psychiatry writes:
The G5 is dead. It was suppose to have been released last summer. In
addition to the Apple AIO bus vs. Motorola Rapid-IO bus fight, Motorola
couldn't get good enough yields. Then Motorola's chip design team
became a victim of the flagging economy. That's why Apple worked with
IBM to create the 970.
That's the story I'd heard, too, but Motorola doesn't
seem willing to say it.
Mac OS X Ruins Simple Networking
In response to Cheerleading,
Misinformation, and Moving Ahead with Mac OS X, Rick Barham
says:
Well said, Dan, and may I add a few things about Apple and
OS X? I've been servicing Macs for years, after switching over
from the Wintel crowd when Win 95 debuted. Though I'm a fan of X in
many ways, I think Apple has gone way overboard with the networking
complexity in OS X. I am constantly receiving calls from those who
either switched to X or actually bought a new Mac as their first
computer and have had problems figuring out all the "Users" and
networking "privileges" built into OS X. And I won't even bother
recommending X to any of my clients running a SOHO network.
What used to be a snap to set up and maintain (AppleTalk and
AppleShare) has turned into a nightmare for many, with users not being
able to access their files after doing a little house cleaning, or
almost locking themselves out of the system entirely after trying to
share a drive. Ever tried sharing your volume over the network or
enabling guest sharing? Have fun! Sure, now we have Rendezvous, but
that does nothing to simplify setting up the file sharing side of
things, unless everyone is content with nothing more than a "Public"
folder.
It used to be so simple in the era of the classic Mac
OS and the Chooser. Open the Chooser. Pick a printer or networked
volume. Connect. Maybe configure the printer if you haven't used it
before.
Intuitive? Not really, but something Mac users became
used to over the years. Now we have to remember to go to the Finder,
open the Go menu, and go to the bottom for the Connect to Server...
option. I can never remember, so I just put an alias on the
desktop.
Ditto for printing. It was easy to choose and
configure a printer in the old days. Now the question "How do I print?"
shows up when the user discovers no printer has yet been selected - and
these longtime Mac users don't have a clue how to do it.
Yes, it's smart to let you choose and configure
printers from the Print dialog, but it's so different.
I hope Rendezvous and Rendezvous enabled devices will
bring back the simplicity, but the NeXT paradigm underlying OS X
seems to relish the power, complexity, and obscurity of the underlying
BSD Unix while abandoning so many Mac conventions that we've worked
with over the years.
Someone needs to write Switching from the Classic
Mac OS to Mac OS X for Dummies.
Fortunately we have an old SuperMac C600 with a 15 GB
IDE hard drive as our network file server. It runs Mac OS 9, so I
know how things work. I prefer to avoid personal file sharing on user
machines when an inexpensive older Mac can sit in a corner and serve
everyone.
AirPort Extreme USB Printer Sharing
After reading our clarification of printing via the AirPort Extreme
hub in Using a USB Printer with Older
PowerBooks, Mark Mayer notes:
I think you are misinformed about the USB print sharing capabilities
of the AirPort Extreme Base Station. While it is true that you need
both Jaguar on your 'puter and a Rendezvous capable printer to use
Rendezvous, you don't need it for plain and simple USB print sharing.
The automagical thing about rendezvous technology is that it enables
devices to recognize each other on a network. No changing setting, no
muss, no fuss.
In the realm of speculation I would guess that someone will come up
with a hack to use Rendezvous with OS X.1.x and maybe even with OS 9,
since rendezvous is open source.
Anyway, just thought you should know the truth. You put a scare into
a lot of people over at dealMac and this is how those crazy apple
rumors get started. Question your source and then give 'em a good whack
for feeding you a bunch of horsepuckey. =)
Keep up the otherwise great work!
I guess I should have gone to Apple instead of
assuming that someone who told me I was wrong had experience with the
product and knew what he was talking about. Apple has a nice list of
printers compatible with USB Printer Sharing with the AirPort
Extreme hub, and a lot of these printers predate Rendezvous.
I don't have an AirPort Extreme hub, nor do I expect
to ever purchase one (I'll probably go with Belkin or D-Link). Until
someone who has one can tell me whether it supports USB printer sharing
without the use of Rendezvous, I'll just have to say that I don't know
if it works without Rendezvous or not.
Sharing the Internet
After reading Networking 101, Wayne
MacKinnon wonders:
I have an iMac which I use for internet (via PPP dialup). I also
have a PB 540c with ethernet.
If I network these two machines with a crossover RJ45 cable, will
the PowerBook be able to surf the Web as well?
In a word, yes. However, you will need a program to
enable sharing the connection, such as SurfDoubler
or IPNetRouter.
I've used both, and each works well. IPNetRouter has the additional
advantage of supporting as many computers as you want; SurfDoubler is
limited to three.
Best Mac for Writing Revisited
On Friday, I answered Michael's questions about the Best Mac for Writing. Over the
weekend, he replied:
Thank you for taking the time to give me such a comprehensive
answer. I have been doing exhaustive research and I have decided on the
following:
I had thought of a PowerBook, but they are very expensive in
Northern Ireland. I have opted, instead, for a new iBook with full RAM
and maximum hard drive, AppleCare, and Microsoft Office for Mac. I am
getting all of this at a reasonable price that will leave me money to
try broadband for the year.
My choice is not ideal but a compromise between what I really need,
what I really wanted, and cost. Ideally, I would have gone for a 17" or
20" Cinema Display with a big Power Mac G4, Apple Pro Speakers, the
works. But upon reflection this seemed excessive and indulgent
considering that I really only use a computer as a glamourized
typewriter.
I hope my choice meets with your approval. I will be ordering my
iBook this Friday. It will be my first Apple.
Once again, thank for your reply and time.
Best wishes,
Michael
A writing tool is very much an individual choice, and
most of us have to make our tools fit limited budgets. I know a lot of
people who are very happy with iBooks; I'm sure you'll join their
ranks.
Broadband is a worthwhile investment. The Internet is
only as fast as you can access it.
I've done fine without Microsoft Office, but in the
real world of sending files to publishers, it's probably the path of
least resistance. I find AppleWorks adequate for all my word processing
and spreadsheet needs, but 95% of the world's computers wouldn't have a
clue what to do with the files it creates.
Congratulations on your new "glamourized
typewriter."
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
